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We end the year with the Narendra Modi government just completing the first half of its tenure. A good time for a midterm review. But any such review will inevitably be dominated by the consequences of the demonetization shock (see my previous column, Mint, 18 November). Moving beyond these short-term preoccupations, what is the single most important policy reform the government should address during the remaining half of its tenure? I would submit that it is the need to reform our failed education policy. The rest of this article explains why that is so. Two overarching challenges face the Indian economy over the long term. One is the challenge of a rapidly deteriorating environment, including the scarcity of fresh water, which I leave aside in this article. The other is the spectre of unemployment or, more accurately, underemployment. There are multiple factors that account for the slow growth of productive jobs, ranging from poor infrastructure to poor governance to the anti-empl...

Indians prefer using cash for good reason. Cash keeps the economy moving even when there is a power cut and bank branches are shut, or when automated teller machines are not working. Cash doesn’t rely on how far a bank branch is from where you live or work; cash doesn’t require you to remember complicated passwords, and cash works even when telecom networks are shut down because of unspecified terror threats, and even where cellphone network is spotty. The woman who sells vegetables at your doorstep wants only cash. The man delivering milk won’t accept a cheque. Some shops don’t accept cards. Cash is the language of transactions, with which you, and millions of others, are used to conducting business daily. Cash is trusted, understood, legal; keeping it is legal; it is yours. But only just. The government has taken a series of measures that have undermined the value of cash. You do technically have money in your account, but the choice of how much you can take out or spend is being ta...

On this day, 45 years ago, Lt General A.A.K. Niazi of the Pakistan Eastern Command signed an instrument of surrender accepting defeat at the hands of Indian forces. A photograph capturing the historical moment was gifted by Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter’s visit to Dhaka in June last year. The gesture was widely resented in Pakistan. It is not surprising that past wars continue to divide the imagination of nation states to the present day. For instance, ritual offerings by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Yasukuni Shrine for the war dead invariably invite rebukes from both China and South Korea—the two countries see the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism. However, if the formerly warring nations have transformed their relationship, the symbols of war need not be shunned indefinitely. They can indeed be embraced to bring about a closure. It was in such a spirit that US President Barack Obam...

Indulge in a small thought experiment. Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi addresses the nation on 2 October 2014. He announces that from the next day all open spaces in villages and towns will be sealed for public access from 5- 10am every day. The spaces will be guarded tightly by the Indian Army and will be impregnable. This jolts the 564 million people in rural India that are entirely dependent on such open spaces for their daily morning ablutions. There is tremendous suffering for these people, even leading to deaths. After many weeks of suffering, some people are forced to start using toilets. The PM claims this was a “shock and awe” treatment to induce a behavioural change in the 61% of rural India that defecates in the open and make India an “open defecation free” society. Would such a move have been lauded as a bold step to rid India of its perennial problem of open defecation? Or would it have been considered a harsh and cruel action in a liberal democracy albeit the honour...

Paul Krugman would stand in line to meet Charlie Stross. The Nobel Prize-winning economist who spoke at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit last week is a sci-fi buff and, with the conviction of a true zealot looking for an argument (I’ve been there, so trust me), told me that the British writer is the best science fiction writer alive. This was at a pre-summit dinner and the small group that had gathered around Krugman—managers of private equity funds, CEOs of global and local companies—didn’t really seem to care. Later that evening, we briefly discussed the economics and probability of commercial space travel of the kind that could enable the colonization of Mars. That we were having a serious discussion on what was once a popular theme in sci-fi (Mars books are legion) is a sign of the times. Towards the end of the tumultuous decade that started in 2008, and characterized by flat-lining incomes, the rise of authoritarian leaders selling simple (and usually shallow, but very popul...